DESTINY OF HUMANITY
(under development)
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Beyond
Humanity
Humanity is not the
final rung in evolution. We may transcend humanity, or humanity will become
something far beyond what it is now.
Divine
Life on Earth
Individuals
can make
the progress that will take them from the current humanity to a new
type of individual. The key to this
ascension is a focus by such individuals to raise themselves to a
higher levels of consciousness. When enough of these
individuals exist in the world it can enable a new type of society, a Divine
Life on Earth. A
Divine Life on earth would consist of a higher version of the current
humanity or a new species who would have evolved beyond the current
functioning of the human, mainly physical, vital, and mental to a
higher spiritual functioning, culminating in a collective of
supramental beings.
Nature
of Supramental Individual
There
would be a transformation of the current mental, vital, and physical
aspects that make up the individual to a higher functioning. "...
to convert our twilit obscure physical mentality into the plenary supramental
illumination, to build peace and a self-existent bliss where there is
only a stress of transitory satisfactions besieged by physical pain
and emotional suffering, to establish an infinite freedom in the world
which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities, to
discover and realize the immortal life in a body subjected to death
and constant mutation, -- this is offered to us as the manifestation
of God in Matter and the goal of Nature in her terrestrial
evolution."
Supramental
Transformation of Body
The
supramental transformation of the physical body will come at the
latter stages of the supramental transformation. The Mother attempted
the supramental transformation of her body. Sri Aurobindo said he
would return in a supramental body.
Man's
Role in the Evolution Towards Higher Planes of Existence
The movement among the planes (from matter to life to mind and beyond)
is due to a upward movement of consciousness that ends in something
new. [There is a creative outcome.] It's drive is Consciousness-Force
and the power of the Real Idea. It mostly happens on its own in
Nature. Now man, the self-conscious being, can find the
spirit within
himself, by discovering the psychic being, and by turning Ignorance to
Knowledge, enabling him to embody the spirit, which will aid in
manifesting further movements of evolution upward into new and higher
planes of existence. However, to do this fully, he will need to
transcend his limiting Mind and open to Supermind to enable the
greatest power of reversal and new emerging existence.]
How
individuals in Gnostic collective life would be and act
"All will be united by the evolution of the
Truth-Consciousness in them; ... they will feel themselves
to be embodiments of a single self, souls of a single
Reality; illumined and motivated by a fundamental unity of
knowledge; actuated by a fundamental unified will and
feeling, a life expressing the spiritual Truth would find
through them its own natural forms of becoming. ..."
"... there would be no ego-insistence on personal
idea and no push or clamor of personal will and interest;
there would instead be a common Truth in many forms, a
common self in many consciousnesses and bodies; there
would be a universality and plasticity which saw and
expressed the One in many figures of itself and worked out
the oneness in all diversities as the inherent law of the
Truth-Consciousness and its truth of nature." A
spiritual or gnostic being would feel his harmony with all
other truth of being around him, with the whole gnostic
life around him. He would know how to lead and rule, how
to subordinate himself. Both would be an equal delight.
Old
Ways Disappear
The old ways of life would disappear, such as mental
idols, constructed principles and systems, conflicting
ideals. There would be an end of war, political strife and
all the negative that issues from it. Life and body would
no longer dominate nine tenths of our existence for their satisfaction.
There would be the end of the reactions to success and frustration,
vital joy and grief, peril and passion, pleasure and pain,
the vicissitudes and uncertainties of fate and struggle.
Divine Life on Earth
Beyond the physical-based social life of early man (occupied with survival, fear, etc.), the vital-based social life of the past five hundred years (expressed through travel, trade, discovery, adventure, the emergence of the individual, etc.), and the developing mental-based age that is in its early to mid manifestation in the current time (expressed as learning, conceptualizing, freedom, the possibility of individual fulfillment, the emergence of democracy, etc.) is the possibility of the emergence of a spiritual-based age and life.
In this form of social or collective life the domination of the mental aspect gradually wanes and ceases. Instead a good number of individuals begin to live their lives predominantly at the spiritual level. When the numbers of these "Gnostic" individuals reach a critical mass, they begin in essence to establish a spiritualized collective life; i.e. a divine life on earth.
Individuals become spiritualized when they convert an essentially surface, outer life, expressed through our thoughts, feelings, and actions, into an inner, spiritualized life. Once a number of individuals have begun to live in this way, then the possibility of the emergence of a spiritual life, culture, age becomes possible.
Therefore, the first necessity for the emergence of a evolutionary divinized life on earth is the discovery amongst a good number of individuals of the Spirit, the divine reality within themselves; where the divine connection and focus is expressed in all aspects of one's life.
The divinized or gnostic being lives a spiritual existence in an integral way; integral in his own being, and integral and one with the world around him. He has integrated and elevated the physical, vital/emotional, and mental planes of his existence to its greatest heights and fulfillment by finding the spirit within himself and applying and elevating these plane of life with the spiritual. He also discovers that the spirit is everywhere in the world and in every other person, eliminating the separation between himself and life and himself and others around him. In other words he is whole and integrated individually and universally.
"To be in the being of all and to include all in one's being, to be conscious of the consciousness of all, to be integrated in force with the universal force, to carry all action and experience in oneself and feel it as one's own action and experience, to feel all selves as one's own self, to feel all delight of being as one's own delight of being is a necessary condition of the integral divine living."
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine
In addition to integrating the planes and levels of one's being (individualization), and becoming one with others and the world around is (universalization), the individuals who will trigger this divine life will be transcendently integrated as well. These individuals will have found the transcendent spirit within, the spiritual force, God, the Divine in the cosmos, and feel, know, act with complete reference to its divine force, power, knowledge, and bliss.
In this context a number of individuals,
integrated individually, universally, and transcendently, can work together, near or
apart, aware or unaware of one another, to create a new common life, superior to the
present individual and common existence. A critical mass of gnostic individuals could
create the foundation of a new social life and order; a divine life on earth.
Then what of this divine life? What would its focus, attributes, and tendencies be? For one there would be an inescapable law of unity, mutuality, and harmony.
"...a greater identity of being and consciousness between individual and individual unified in their spiritual substance, feeling themselves to be self and self of one self-existence, acting in a greater unitarian force of knowledge, a greater power of being. There must be an inner and direct mutual knowledge, based upon a consciousness of oneness and identity, a consciousness of each other's being, thought, feeling, inner and outer movements ...." Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine
The current vital and mental constructions of life would be replaced by gnostic individuals who live beyond the vicissitudes of human thought and the push and pull of the forces of Nature. Humanity in the current age does not have the depth of inner knowledge to understand the infinite forces that are involved in the emerging world, (e.g. what can create the greater good of the community). His limiting mind-sense and the limiting mind-sense of the collective hasn't the integral vision and knowledge and force of action to deal with the evolving society. We have created a civilization which has become too big for our limited mental capacities and understanding and our limiting ego, which narrows the truth to our own needs and desires. The current unfolding and limited blossoming of life on earth is bound by the limiting vital animal and passion nature, and the narrow opening to the full truth which is the human mind.
A life of unity, mutuality, and harmony alone, emerging from individuals who are in integral relationship with themselves, others, and the transcendent spirit, can deal with the overwhelming needs of the collective life. Science, economic development, democracy, religion, and other institutions and ideas and ideals are alone incapable of addressing the evolutionary needs of the emerging collective life. If the gnostic beings help establish this integral, unifying gnostic consciousness on earth, it would provide a far greater power and knowledge than mental man has for understanding and acting on the needs of the emerging collective.
Thus it is likely that much that is normal in human life would likely disappear. Mental ideals, systems, would dissolve as a new harmony is created founded on a much wider basis of inner knowledge. Political strife would disappear in a divine atmosphere of unity. Life and body would not completely preoccupy us as it does now in our current existence. A great diversity and freedom of self-expression, based on a spiritual core of being, would emerge. The one rule of this divine life would be the self expression of the spirit, of the divine, in all aspects of life.
"..an existence without the reactions of success and frustration, vital joy and grief, peril and passion, pleasure and pain, the vicissitudes and uncertainties if fate and struggle and battle and endeavor, a joy of novelty and surprise and creation projecting itself into the unknown ...
The gnostic manifestation of life would be more full and fruitful and its interest more vivid than the creative interest of the Ignorance; it would be a greater and happier constant miracle."
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine
Additional Information
To read the Growth Online interview on the supramental
transformation called The Future Evolutionary Individual and Collective Life on Earth,
click here.
To go to the New Insights into the Life and Teachings
of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother site, click
here